Kitschy chainsaw vagrants, crumpled tubes of fake blood, and powder-faced vampires with plastic teeth can kiss their glory days good bye. They’ve got nothing on the unexplained mysteries at Fantasy of Flight.

Those mysteries will come under scrutiny during Fantasy of Flight’s nightFlights beginning Saturday. For $75, participants will work with Apollo Paranormal Investigations (API) staff to record paranormal activity among the favorite haunts of the popular Polk County aviation museum. The museum will host the four-hour investigations, starting at 9:30 p.m. It will also be offered Feb. 13 and 27.

Kim Long is the general manager of Fantasy of Flight. She stresses that nightFlight isn’t another Halloween hoax.

The event, says Long, was borne out Fantasy of Flight’s seasoned history of unexplained noises, sightings and other paranormal episodes. In the last two years, Long tells of unplugged copier machines that printed paper, guests of the museum who have interacted with ghosts, and staff members who’ve had “haunting, eerie moments.”

“We’re not weaving together stories of lore,” said Long. “Ghost tours have a great entertainment value, but they usually employ contrivance and are meant to be pure entertainment. We’re here to promise an experience of integrity, interaction and engagement for people interested in unexplainable phenomena.”

API, headed by lead investigator Cliff Kennedy, approached Long and Fantasy of Flight founder Kermit Weeks last summer about conducting an investigation. API confirmed what Long and Weeks say they knew: Fantasy of Flight’s paranormal activity was off the charts.

“We have obtained photos, (recordings of) disembodied voices, and video evidence along with several personal experiences,” said Kennedy.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Kennedy says the eerie activity at Fantasy of Flight is “easily a 10.”

“At Fantasy of Flight … guests will be a part of an ongoing investigation that API started last summer and will continue this year,” said Kennedy. ” They will use the same equipment they see on TV, learn what techniques a paranormal investigator uses, and much more.”

Guests, says Kennedy, will assist the investigation by wielding electromagnetic field detectors, digital voice recorders, and temperature guns. The data that guests collect will be gathered by the API team and analyzed. Results will be posted to a password-protected Web site where guests who participated in the event can review the results, says Long.

While Long can’t promise that guests will see a ghost, she won’t eliminate the possibility.

“We’re not here to promise a ghost around every corner,” she said, “(but) if circumstances are ripe for it, guests may encounter something that cannot be immediately explained.”

Old Everett apparently wasn’t in the mood to mingle with the mortals.

The Caine Lyric Theater’s well-known resident spook did not stir in the wee hours Sunday morning as a team of ghost hunters tried to coax him out. From Everett not a peep — no shaking of chandeliers, no opening or closing of doors.

About eight members of the group Wasatch Paranormal Investigators scoured the 97-year-old theater on Center Street — scaling shaky ladders to reach the dusty rafters, squeezing into tight catacombs to call out to the spirits possibility within.

Alas, no Everett, who, despite his low profile Sunday, has over the years established a reputation of tinkering around the old theater, making his presence felt in one way or another.

The story goes like this: Everett was an actor playing the second gravedigger in a production of Hamlet and was getting more laughs than the guy playing the first gravedigger, which was supposed to be the big laugh-getting part. The actor Everett upstaged grew angry, killed Everett in the theater and subsequently used his skull as a prop in the grave scene.

Everett’s body was later found in a dirt hallway running between the theater furnace and boiler room. Everett now reportedly haunts the theater, prowling the catwalks, calling out to rehearsing actors or stage technicians. He’s got his own seat in the balcony, which some have said they’ve seen swivel down on its own. Actors claim the ghost has been heard laughing during rehearsals of Hamlet. The details and factual foundation of the Everett story is sketchy — there’s no evidence linking any of it to the real world — but the tale still sparks wonder and inspires people like Tom Carr and Jessica Stevens.

Carr has been investigating paranormal activity across Utah for 20 years and is WPI’s founder. Stevens is a 20-year-old Utah State University student.

“I think it’s a natural thing to want that thrill, that rush,” said Carr, a Tooele resident. “It’s like riding a roller coaster — you never know what’s around the next bend.”

WPI investigated the Caine in January 2008 and had better success — a drinking fountain turned on and off by itself, a door latched and unlatched on its own.

Ron King, a production director at the Caine, was on hand Sunday morning. As an undergraduate student years ago, he lived for a short time in the theater’s light booth. He heard a noise one night and looked down to the stage where he saw a man standing. He called out to him but received no response. By the time he made his way to the stage, the man was gone. There was no way to get out, King said.

He tells the story with a skeptical smirk but still says, “I believe there’s something going on.”

Several current theater workers said strange stuff happens.

“He just likes to play around,” said worker Chrissy Wagstaff of Everett. Some have seen Everett wearing his brown pants and green sweater.

WPI member Stevens likes the rush but also said she enjoys getting to explore historic places and learning about days gone by.

“I’ve always loved the backstories,” she said.

If you want to believe so bad, aren’t you going to see and hear stuff? Carr was asked.

“I think it’s possible that in our minds we can see things and hear things that really aren’t there, but once you’ve been doing this for awhile you get past it. You develop a skill to tell the difference.”

Also, some encounters are undeniable — several WPI investigators said they’ve had experiences that have blown down their walls of skepticism concerning the supernatural; Carr, a large man, said he was once knocked on his butt by an unseen force at Wendover Air Force Base. “There was no way I could’ve done that myself,” he said. Stevens describes full apparitions she’s encountered.

Ghosthunting is kinda like fishing — sitting around for hours and ending up with nothing to show for it, unless you count having a fun adventure with like-minded friends.

“Are we crazy? Well, we sit alone in the dark and talk to ourselves. Is it fun? It can be a blast,” Carr said.

After the evening, the crew will go home and analyze the audio recordings they made to see if any ghostly voices turn up.

“That’s where the thrill gets me,” Carr said.

As the evening wound down, WPI member Doug Frame said, “I felt something warm move past me.”

He’s primed for that next thrill, which could happen at any moment.

“I wish I would get scared again,” he said.

File this squarely under creepy. A few months before his body was found hanging in a Bangkok hotel room closet, David Carradine sat down to discuss a ghost he believed was haunting him … from a closet.

The interview, taped for the Oct. 3 premiere of the BIO show ‘Celebrity Ghost Stories,’ centers on Carradine’s belief that his wife Annie’s deceased husband Dana was using the closet in their bedroom as home base to spook them. In the footage, the late ‘Kung Fu’ actor describes the “icy cold” feeling he got.

“I think he was hanging out in the closet, and sometimes when I walked into that closet … it would be cold in there, unreasonably cold,” Carradine said, according to quotes from the New York Post, which claims it’s his final interview ever.

Carradine was equally freaked out by one of Dana’s ties that remained in the closet. “[It] was turned around and it had a little logo attached to it … that said ‘Grateful Dead,’ and I thought, what does he mean by that?”

“It was obviously a joke, that the dead were grateful . . . it was the only way he could communicate [that] he now felt like everything was settled, the kids were taken care of and I was gonna be there for them,” Carradine said. “And I will be.”

Carradine died of asphyxiation on June 3 after an apparent self-bondage episode went horribly wrong. He was found naked with a rope tied around his neck.

Rob Sharenow, BIO’s senior VP of programming, said the network didn’t want to exploit Carradine’s death, so they held the episode and didn’t mention the actor’s involvement until now.

“We wanted to be respectful, first and foremost, and to roll the show out as planned,” he told the Post.

And “roll the show” they shall, with Carradine featured heavily in marketing materials.

“We’re absolutely going to feature the Carradine story prominently the week it airs,” he says. “While we don’t want to appear as if we were exploiting his misfortune … we don’t want to be shy about talking about it.”

“It’s extraordinary — and people are going to notice it.”

Spirits don’t take vacations. At least that’s what Bonnie LeTourneau thinks.

Although the May-Stringer Heritage Museum has been closed for the past month for its annual cleaning and maintenance, the woman who hosts the celebrated ghost tours at the museum says things inside the Victorian mansion remain as spooky as ever.

“I don’t think it’s possible to chase away the spirits that reside there,” LeTourneau said. “They’ve been there too long.”

As a weekend volunteer guide, LeTourneau leads groups of visitors in search of the many mysteries that surround the four-story, 12-room museum. Legend has it that the 151-year-old house, originally built by Brooksville pioneer John May, is inhabited by the spirits of long-deceased family members, including May’s 3-year-old daughter, Jessie.

All of which, in the minds of LeTourneau and others, explains some of the strange occurrences that go on there. In addition to numerous odd noises, museum staffers have reported encountering images of people moving through darkened hallways, cold spots and mists that suddenly appear in areas of the house, and glowing orbs of light that hover over the house’s tin roof.

LeTourneau said her own encounters with these “entities” have been fairly frequent. She has often heard footsteps coming from the upper floors of the house and has felt the touch of something or someone on her shoulder when no one else is around. And then there’s the soft wail of a small child that LeTourneau and many others believe belongs to Jessie May.

“It sent shivers down my spine the first time I heard it,” LeTourneau said. “It was very unsettling.

LeTourneau admits she was a skeptic when she first set foot inside the door of the house near downtown Brooksville 3 1/2 years ago. Nevertheless, she felt a strange attraction to the history of the edifice, which through the years also served as a boardinghouse and a doctor’s office. At the behest of museum caretakers, she began conducting special group tours on weekend nights for those interested in exploring the home’s deepest secrets.

Although the museum’s paranormal activity can be somewhat inconsistent, LeTourneau claims there is enough going on that the house has earned “hot spot” status from such supernatural investigative groups as Paranormal Seekers and Florida Ghost Hunters.

State police are warning paranormal enthusiasts to stay away from the former Torrance State Hospital, a century-old building that has housed thousands of mentally ill people in Derry Township.

“People have been going in there for years thinking they’ll see a ghost or something. But it’s now owned privately and the family that owns that building no longer wants anyone going in there,” said township ordinance officer Terry Giannini.

The owners of the building are John and Lori McConnell.

“It’s all over the Internet that it’s supposed to be haunted … there are entire Web pages devoted to it. But I don’t know,” Giannini said.

Videos taken by trespassers are posted on YouTube, showing crumbling walls and collapsing ceilings, and message boards describe late-night visits to the red brick building as “spooky” and “freaky.” The amount of graffiti evidences the number of late-night visitors looking for a thrill.

Lori McConnell said Monday that she and her husband have farmed neighboring property for years, but they knew of no paranormal phenomenon at the former hospital until they purchased it earlier this year.

“We just don’t want anyone getting hurt. We have been in that building quite often, at all times of the day, and we can assure everyone there is no paranormal activity,” she said.

She said the family has not yet decided what to do with the building.

The hospital opened in 1919 and housed 3,300 patients by the mid-1950s, according to a state Web site. It closed during the 1960s, according to the state Department of Public Welfare Web site.

Giannini believes that some interest in the vacant asylum was spurred by rooms that were used to administer shock therapy and perform lobotomies, methods used to treat mental illness before the 1960s.

State police recently cited 18-year-old Sarah Davis, of Johnstown, for criminal trespass after she allegedly was found on the property off Torrance Road about 9:35 p.m. Aug. 15. She must appear before Derry Township District Judge Mark Bilik and faces a fine up to $300, plus court costs, if convicted.

State police said McConnell has gated off the building entrance and posted no trespassing signs.

The creaks of an old building could be the settling of the floorboards, or, as some believe, the nighttime jaunts of a ghost.

To test what may be making nocturnal noise at the Southington Grange building on Summit Street, members of the New England Ghost Hunters Guild will make a moonlit investigation Saturday using their wits and a van full of high-tech equipment.

The Grange moved into its headquarters about 60 years ago, said President James Lamoureux, but the organization itself was founded 115 years ago. “People have a strong connection to the organization,” he said. That connection could mean friendly spirits want to stay in touch, Lamoureux mused.

“You hear creaks and the pipes go on. The curtains blow because the windows are leaky,” Lamoureux said. “I can’t say there is paranormal activity,” he added.

“We’re not going to catch Casper the Friendly Ghost flying around,” said Jay Palazzo, a Ghost Hunters Guild member from Plainfield. He said digital electronic equipment can record sounds that can’t be heard by the human ear and infrared cameras can spot movement in the darkest of rooms.

Palazzo said electromagnetic fields can be measured and could show a spirit is present. “We use five LED lights. The theory is, if a spirit is present, they can move the lights up and down,” he said.

Guild founder Cassy Pabst, of Chelmsford, Mass., started the organization when she was 19. “We saw shows like ‘Ghost Hunters.’ We noticed they were nonprofit and made up of kids like us,” she said. She’s done about 30 investigations since then and has learned how to help the folks who are worried about what they are sensing.

“Some feel they’re insane. I’ve heard it many, many times. I give them comfort. They are not insane,” Pabst said.

Both Palazzo and Pabst say the best paranormal encounter they’ve had came in an historic home in Warner, N.H. Pabst said an innkeeper asked the guild to investigate a ghost. The investigation showed the home’s former owner, known as Uncle Frank, was still around, they said.

“The owner thought it was so cool. They see Uncle Frank all the time. The innkeeper said (Frank) looks like an old man, which he was,” Pabst said.

“We called out, ‘Are you Uncle Frank?’ ” Palazzo said. “He answered ‘yes’, very distinct. It was an instant, intelligent response,” Palazzo said. “It was like they were protecting the home. It was Uncle Frank’s old home.”

Palazzo said they believe two or three of Frank’s family members are also present.

Paranormal investigations usually take most of the night, and the guild often visits the same location several times. “There is a fifty-fifty chance the first time they won’t communicate,” said Pabst. Another visit gives the spirit the chance to get used to the guild members, she said.

Palazzo said it will take about a week to compile the information from the Grange investigation. “We don’t know of any paranormal activity, but this is about curiosity,” he said.

Paranormal investigators have become fairly well-known through popular television programs such as “Ghost Hunters” and “Paranormal State.”

Locally, the City Lights Paranormal Society has investigated Stemies Place in Easton and, recently, the Newburg Inn in Lower Nazareth Township in attempts to confirm or refute the alleged haunted history of both buildings.

Joe Iannetta, a car salesman by day and “ghosbuster” at night, had his team taking video and readings last week at the 250-year old restaurant in the Nazareth area.

Stories of ghosts at the Newburg Inn are well-known around Nazareth. Customers, workers and tenants have claimed to see apparitions including those of a former owner named Newt and an Indian reportedly hanged in the rafters of the attic.

Iannetta has to review more than 60 hours of video taken on the premise before revealing his findings.

A crew from A&E Television is looking for ghosts at a landmark hotel in northwestern Pennsylvania.

The crew from the cable channel’s “Paranormal State 3″ series is scheduled to wrap up shooting Tuesday of an episode for the upcoming third season at the Hotel Conneaut (KAW’-nee-awt). No air date has been set.

The hotel is part of the Conneaut Lake Park amusement park and resort complex about 80 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Ghost watchers claim the hotel is home to spirits of a dancing couple in its ballroom, a bride named Elizabeth, and children riding a bicycle, among others.

As if 14 kids was not enough, Nadya Suleman apparently has another little visitor living with her, although this one at least was uninvited.

Suleman told RadarOnline that her house is haunted by the ghost of a young child.

She was apparently being serious when she said that she was just about to sit on the toilet when she heard a child — other than the multiple suspects living in her home — say, “Mommy?”

She also related that one of the nannies who helps her reported seeing a small child disappear in an upstairs room that’s always “unusually cold.”

“This is something you’re not supposed to believe in if you are a believer in God, but it’s something that I’m a little worried about,” she told the website.

If praying doesn’t make the ghost go away, she said she plans to buy 20 Bibles and put them around the home.